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Saturday, September 9, 2017

Convoy.

This is coolbert:

Islamic State combatants [apparently including their wives and children now stranded in the Syrian desert. Having been given safe passage but not finding themselves going from the proverbial frying pan to the fire.

From the latest edition of the DEBKAfile newsletter:

"ISIS bus convoy stranded in Syrian desert"

2 September.

"The 17 buses allowed under a Hizballah-brokered truce to carry ISIS fighters from the Lebanese-Syrian border battle to Deir ez-Zour are reported stranded in the Syrian Desert. According to a statement, the US-led coalition sent a message to Damascus, via Russia, that the Islamist convoy would not be allowed to move closer to the Iraqi border, but suggested a course of action was needed to save the women and children from any further suffering. Iraq accused Hizballah of trying to dump the Islamists on its border. Coalition forces are targeting any ISIS vehicles attempting to assist the convoy, but not the convoy itself. Food and water are being provided"

"IRBIL, Iraq — An attempt by Islamic State to evacuate hundreds of fighters from western Syria to the Iraqi border has instead left them sitting ducks for aerial attacks by the U.S.-led coalition on the convoy."

“'We were able to exploit it and take advantage,' Army Col. Ryan S. Dillon, a coalition spokesman, said of the ISIS maneuver Thursday morning as 11 buses full of ISIS fighters and civilians remained stranded in the Syrian desert."

"U.S. warplanes continue to pick off militants who stray too far from the protection of the convoy’s women and children,"

That siege of Deir Ezzor having been lifted, the convoy NOW has nowhere to go?